LOS ANGELES—In the early morning Thursday, Alain Vigneault was on the second-floor balcony of his oceanside hotel room, sitting with his feet up, reading the newspaper. The beach was mostly empty; it was a peaceful time. Serene.

An hour later he met the media. Serenity stayed in the room.

“One thing that’s real evident to me, and it should be to our whole group, is we’re not going to beat this team if we do not all bring our ‘A’ game,” said the New York Rangers coach following a 3-2 loss to the Los Angeles Kings in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup final. “It is that strong of an opponent that we’re playing against. We had (Henrik Lundqvist) that brought his A game last night. We had a couple guys. I don’t want to name who I think brought their A game.

“But our B game won’t do it. We’re not going to win if we bring our B game to the table. They’re one of the best teams I’ve seen in a long time.”

When NHL coaches sound that honest, when they begin to mash the alarm, you usually start looking for the angles. Is he trying to distract from something? (Uh, what?) Is he starved for entertainment? (No, that was the Montreal series.) Is he sending a message to his own team? (Maybe.) Is he sending a message to the other guys? (Good luck with that.)

Whatever the reason, it sounded like he saw what we saw. In Game 1 the Kings showed the weight of their incredible series with Chicago, then leaned into the game, the way they do. Coach Darryl Sutter saw heavy legs, shuffled his lines, found other combinations — Kyle Clifford and Jeff Carter were terrific — and the Kings recovered from a multi-goal deficit for the fourth time in these playoffs. Sutter said he felt they were vulnerable before the game began.

“I think obviously the turnaround — guys are not machines,” said Sutter, in his farm oracle way. “It was an emotional series against Chicago, Game 7. You play seven games, actually three overtime periods in there, when you add that in there you’re close to eight games when it was all said and done. It was tough.”

And then they went out and outshot the Rangers 20-3 in the third period, won puck battles, established territorial dominance, and cracked Dan Girardi in overtime. And the feeling you came away with was boy, the Rangers might be in trouble.

“We’re a team that’s just never going to go away,” said Clifford, who had a goal and an assist in just 9:03 of ice time.

Vigneault may have arrived at a similar conclusion, and it didn’t feel like he was playing games. Vigneault coached the Canucks when they lost to the Kings in five in 2012, when L.A. won the Cup. He knows what these guys are.

“They were a good team in the years past. They’re a real good team now,” said Vigneault. “It’s obvious they’ve got more experience . . . Nothing jumped out at me in the sense that everything that I expected, everything that we had talked to our players about, about what to expect, they did it down to a T. They keep doing it.”

He kept saying A game, and pointed to Game 6 against Montreal for an example of every Ranger bringing it. But in that series, against an inferior opponent to the one he’s facing now, that was probably the only time New York played at its maximum level for 60 minutes. Vigneault was asked about the most challenging part of this Kings team, based on what he’s seen.

“To tell you the truth, I can’t name one,” said Vigneault. “They can play a fast game. They can be physical when the opportunity is there. They’re a good team.

“But saying that, I believe in looking back at it, for 40 minutes we went head to head with them. When they had a push, we had one guy that had a big push. Our goaltender permitted us to stay in that game. We were one shot away. So I think our group can be better.”

And that was a key point, hidden but there. It felt like dominance, but in the crazy final minute New York’s Carl Hagelin got loose for his second breakaway of the game, and earlier Martin St. Louis had a pretty good chance, too, and it wasn’t like the Kings spent that third period forcing Lundqvist to be an acrobat.

They were still one shot away. L.A. won its first two on the road against Anaheim and went seven, and Vancouver won its first two against Boston in 2011 and lost in seven, and Detroit won the first two against Pittsburgh in 2009 and lost in seven, and . . .

Well, the lesson here is this isn’t over. You can imagine it, sure. You can picture the Kings finding yet another gear, and pounding the gas pedal, and the Rangers falling away like dry leaves. Sounds like their coach already has.

More on thestar.com

We value respectful and thoughtful discussion. Readers are encouraged to flag comments that fail to meet the standards outlined in our
Community Code of Conduct.
For further information, including our legal guidelines, please see our full website
Terms and Conditions.